CRUISE VIGNETTES 05, Fairsea

ZIHUATANEJO
In those days, Zihuatanejo was a primitive stopping place. We have heard it has changed a lot since more cruise ships stop here, and now tourists can spend their money in stores, and for other things. We remember seeing tortillas being made in a rather dirty store, on a rather dirty machine.

PUERTO VALLARTA
A man we knew in Los Angeles, was trying to buy a house in Puerto Vallarta, and asked us to deliver a letter to the real estate agent. It was interesting to visit his home, and see how an upper class family lived in Mexico. But the rest of the city, wow! This was soon after Elizabeth Taylor and Richard Burton had filmed a movie here, and the place was more famous than it deserved to be.

MAZATLAN
Emmy was shopping, while I sat on the sea-wall, waiting for her. I noticed a woman walking on the sidewalk along the sea-wall, carrying one child, and holding the hand of another. I soon noticed that the one child would skip along, just as happy as could be, until they reached another person sitting on the wall, then the mother would squeeze his hand and signal the kid to wail and cry until either something was donated, or they were rejected and were on their way to the next person. Can’t say we can blame her, but on the other hand, … … !

Emmy couldn’t imagine that I was telling the whole story, but a few months later, while we were in Tijuana, Mexico, near the California border, I pointed out the same thing being done by a woman with a couple of kids, on the streets in downtown Tijuana.

US CUSTOMS INSPECTION
At Los Angeles we got off the ship with the few items we had purchased, and immediately passed through the US Customs line. We were just as immediately stopped by another customs man who proceeded to go through everything with a fine-tooth comb.

He accused us of being up to something. We didn’t need our passports, so why did we have them with us? Did we place all those little purchases in one suitcase, because we hoped they wouldn’t look in the other one? (That’s just what the ship’s officials told everyone to do.) Finally we got out of there, after a 30 minute problem.

The next day I called the head of Customs in Los Angeles, and told him what happened. He checked and called me back and said this man had just graduated from training school, and was just doing each and everything by the book, as they had taught him. He (both men) couldn’t imagine why we hadn’t made a fuss at the time. I said we were afraid that “rookie” might throw us in jail if we complained.